In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, Felix G. Rohatyn (pictured), the U.S. Ambassador to France from 1997 to 2001, noted that during his tenure “no single issue was viewed with as much hostility as our support for the death penalty.” Rohatyn urged the U.S. to consider the impact of maintaining capital punishment on our relations with our allies, and he stated that consideration of international trends is appropriate when cases are reviewed by the Supreme Court. Rohatyn wrote:

During my four years as the American ambassador to France, I discovered that no single issue was viewed with as much hostility as our support for the death penalty. Outlawed by every member of the European Union, the death penalty was, and is, viewed in Europe as a throwback to the Middle Ages. When we require European support on security issues — Iran’s nuclear program; the war in Iraq; North Korea’s bomb; relations with China and Russia; the Middle East peace process — our job is made more difficult by the intensity of popular opposition in Europe to our policy.

Several years ago, Justice Anthony Kennedy spoke to the senior staff of our embassy in Paris on this issue to help them explain our position to a very hostile French audience. I was agreeably surprised when he indicated his belief that sooner or later, we would have to take into account the views of Europeans in determining what constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Last March, the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, abolished capital punishment for juvenile offenders, concluding that the death penalty for minors is indeed cruel and unusual punishment. “Our determination,” Justice Kennedy wrote in the majority decision, “finds confirmation in the stark reality that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty.”
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[G]lobalization has made it not only “appropriate or useful” but vital to look at foreign laws. It is in our interest to be aware of their impact whether they concern antitrust, food safety or the death penalty. Contempt for the laws of our allies is a major factor in our increasing isolation in the world … .

(New York Times, January 26, 2006). See New Voices and International.

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